Here’s how badly we’re getting ripped off by our mobile phone providers

It is hard to overstate how much I love the British mobile provider Three and how I wish it would come to the United States. My fellow Americans, let me (again) re-iterate how badly we’re all getting overcharged: Three offers a 30-day prepaid plan with unlimited data, unlimited texts, and 200 minutes of domestic calling, all for £20 ($31). That’s about one-third less than what I pay right now Stateside.

As I’ve been reporting for Ars for years now, the American mobile market is slowly starting to move in the direction of prepaid plans, which has dominated the rest of the globe for years. To match what I already have with Straight Talk, I’d be looking at paying $60 per month with T-Mobile. AT&T, meanwhile, charges $60 for less data! Verizon doesn’t even offer a prepaid plan anywhere close to 5GB. Its best offer is $60 per month, but only at 2.5GB. Sprint comes closest, at $45 for 3GB of data. Some of the other MVNOs have offers that are identical or even come very close to Straight Talk. For instance, I might consider switching to Cricket, a subsidiary of AT&T. including a discount for adding a second line (my wife), we would pay the same as we pay now ($90).